


The Glitter Left Behind

by Kibbers



Series: Christmas OTP Challenge [23]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Proposals, Winter, christmas day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5526899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a box bigger than the TV sitting on their entertainment center, wrapped in green and red striped paper, shining in the morning light streaming through their apartment’s freshly cleaned windows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glitter Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Last day guys :( Day 25: Christmas Day...I hope you've all enjoyed reading these as much as I've enjoyed writing them. Also, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas/New Year or whatever you celebrate! 
> 
> My Tumblr is [ here](www.kibberswrites.tumblr.com) if you want to send me prompts or fic ideas or headcannons or just want to talk about your day! I'd love to hear from you :)

There was a box bigger than the TV sitting on their entertainment center, wrapped in green and red striped paper, shining in the morning light streaming through their apartment’s freshly cleaned windows. Sam eyed it warily, pausing in the doorway. It hadn’t been there when he’d gone for a jog that morning, but now, just out of the shower, it was there. A note, off white and scribbled on in dark, looping handwriting he recognized, dangled from the top and Sam stepped closer to read it.

_Sam, open this one now. No, don’t turn around. Don’t pass go. Just open this damn box. Now. Right now. Do it._

Sam rolled his eyes and flipped the note over. _And don’t roll your eyes, you love me._ Okay, Sam had to giggle at that. Gabe knew him too well. And it should have been scary but it wasn’t. That’s how he knew. Gabe was the man he wanted to spend his infinities with, each miniscule moment, each and every breath. There was no doubt in his mind.

Sam shrugged and unwrapped the wrapping paper, crumpling it to the floor. A cardboard box, now bare, sat taped and waiting. Sam pulled at the tape until it gave under his fingers and he could pry it open. Another box, wrapped in a blue paper this time, sat inside, another note dangling from the top. Sam had a bad feeling about this, his ex-trickster boyfriend just the type to record him unwrapping box after box and post it on YouTube.

_For the gray days you were there for and the yellow days we spent together and the in-between that I can’t remember, though I know you were there too._

It was too personal, too sincere to be a trick then...right? Would he really write something like that just to have nothing inside?

He tore the wrapping paper off wearily, finding this box also taped shut. He tore that easily to find, surprise surprise another wrapped box, this one small enough to lift and light when he did. Yet another tag hung from the top with its scrawling message.

_For your warmth and the way it wards off demons, both of the night and of the cold._

Sam unwrapped this one and groaned aloud when he found another fucking box, shining red and covered in glitter. Sam knew the glitter would be everywhere for eternity and was already dreading how much was on his hands.

_For the sound of fluttering pages and the way you smile with your voice when you read to me._

_For your ass._

_Seriously, your ass is absolutely fantastic Sam._

_For the way your hand fits in mine._

_For the way you’ve made the ground a lot softer after I lost the sky._

Sam opened box after box, their living room carpet filling with scraps of torn wrapping paper and glitter and cardboard boxes until one the size of his palm was left. There was no way something smaller was in there and Sam had grown frustrated at this game. But the last note said _Trust me._ He did. Trust Gabe that is. So he calmed the rising irritation at both the mess and the lack of result in the dozen boxes he’d opened and he tore the silver sparkling paper off to find a velvet box. His breath hitched. He knew what it was instantly. Slowly, fingers shaking, he lifted the lid to find it...empty. Of fucking course. Just a note wrapped around the foam finger. Sam had a feeling it was going to say ‘fooled you’ or something along those lines and he steeled himself for that.

_Turn around_

Sam turned around slowly, feet crunching on the mountain of paper beneath him. Gabriel sat, no knelt, ring extended and hope in his eyes.

“Whatya say Sammy? Let’s become old men together.”

And it hit Sam like a truck, his words. Gabe hadn’t ever had to face the idea of growing old until the angels fell. And he wanted to spend it with Sam. _And he wanted to spend it with Sam._

Sam nodded, tears blurring his vision, while Gabe slid the ring onto his finger and launched into his arms to pepper kisses all over his face. The ring was plain, a simple band with an engraving on the inside Sam had yet to read, but somehow he was so very aware of it on his finger, his thumb finding it to fiddle with almost subconsciously.

“How’d I do?” Gabe whispered. And how could he even ask that? To Sam, it didn’t matter how he did it, he coulda done it on the side of the damn road if he wanted. But this was everything that they were. It was joking and heartfelt and so very Gabe.

“Amazing,” Sam said. “But, you’re cleaning this shit up.”

Gabe snickered and scooped some of the wrapping paper from the carpet, tossing it into the air to rain down on them.

“Gabe seriously?” Sam said, trying to avoid glitter to the hair. It would take weeks to wash out.

“Shut up, you love me.”

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

In the end, they cleaned it up together. Well, kind of. Gabe ended up trying to crumple the paper into balls to try to throw them into the trash bag from farther and farther away which only resulted in a floor covered in fist-sized paper balls that Sam had to wrangle up later. One still sat underneath the couch, though neither of them found it for months. When Sam did find it, he smoothed out the paper and put it in a shoebox in the back of their closet. It held a sort of magic, that paper. Their voices and their words and their memories from that day were all there and every time he looked at it, it came flooding back, warm and strong and real. He couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. Not even when, each time he touched it, glitter covered his fingers.


End file.
